I recently built a set of aluminium tubular wheels for crit racing purposes. Wasn't aiming for low weight (as in climbing wheelset), wanted something solid and cheap. Used the TB25 rims, and have been pleased so far. Weights for rims were 433 and 422 grams. Not super light-weight, but as jooo just mentioned I would have no reservations using them in low spoke-count wheels (I'm using 24/28 on Novatec hubs with DT revolution spokes, brass nipples).

In comparison, I've used Crono F20 in a 28hole build on DA7700 hubs, and had lots of issues with wheels going out of true (racing crits, 73kg).

@Wookie- Where did you buy the macaero spokes from? I've only found one shop in Germany, and they didn't have a very big selection of lengths... Also, what was your experience with the build, were they pretty consistent in length and quality?

Sorry for the OT...

Anyways, I built an aluminum tubular wheelset on BHS hubs recently, used some older matrix branded rims... at 28/28 and 74kg, they worked pretty well for a couple of seasons. Wouldn't have gone much lower though, 20/24 sounds flexy with such light weight rims

I have bought the MacAero spokes, 424s and 360s, on Ebay from seller Good886. My experience with them has been really positive, lengths are consistent, quality is good and you can get both even and odd lengths. The only thing that is a bit annoying is that the round section really varies in length depending on overall spoke length. Some lengths have a very short round section and on others it is quite long. All three of my recent personal wheelsets I've built with Mac spokes and I've had no issues. For the price I don't see myself going back to CX-Rays.

490g nemesis is the weight of my rims. Alloy nipples have given no issues in all the wheels builds I have done. no breakages. I use them no most of my personal wheelsets even my winter wheels and have no issues.

28H Chrono rims are for sub 50kg riders. 32H chrono's need to be build with Race spokes or similar and even then sub 75 kg riders. I would not ride them at 80 kg.

Escapes built with Laser and DA hubs would be my ideal choice in 24F/28R or 28F/28R. Kinlin's are not a bad choice but are heavier.

Good to hear about the mac spokes! I'll definitely use him when I build up my carbon rims this winter I bet the reason the round part is different lengths is that they only make the forgings for the spokes in even lengths with a long round section, then cut/ thread the odd lengths off from that. Saves a bunch of money and lets you stock fewer lengths.

I too vote for alloy nipples- if you build the wheels right, you shouldn't have to true them anyways after the initial few miles, so rounding off has never been a problem for me. There are some interesting new designs with hexagonal heads/ stuff that make that less of a concern if you were worried though.

Teleguy, The tires are 25mm Vittoria Corsa SCs. I've been happy with the fit on the rims. I removed the rear tire due to a puncture and it was the most difficult tire I've removed. Anything smaller is unlikely to work well though, maybe a 24mm tire would work, but it would be pushing it.

Djay, you are right about the lacing pattern. It was an experiment, I was worried the low profile rim with a low spoke count and very light spokes would turn out noodley so I was trying to get the widest bracing angle I could. I was more concerned with lateral stiffness when getting out of the saddle on very steep grades than with power transfer. The wheels turned out to be more laterally stiff than my 2x both sides XR300s and wind up hasn't been an issue for me, but I'm not putting out a ton of watts (that said, I did manage to take a Strava KOM off the current US national champ on these wheels ). Knowing what I know now about how this combination performs I would probably lace the DS 2x in the future, but this met my needs.

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